Too Sweet For Me

The morning began with a leg and back workout which would have been great had my ankle recovered already. I’m still waiting on it, but unfortunately, I cannot give it the break it probably needs. I am constantly on my feet.

During Chef’s demo, he showed us how to finish off our petit fours with poured fondant. I took my three layer petit four cake wrapped in marzipan and cut it into different shapes—triangles, circles, squares, and rectangles. In a bowel we softened fondant by boiling syrup and pouring it into the bowl with the fondant. We each had surgical gloves so we could mix it icing by hand. It was quite a messy job and I’m certain there is a better way. My gloves tore because of the heat of the syrup and I was scorching my fingertips trying to liquefy my fondant. When it was the correct consistency, I poured the fondant over the pre-cut petit fours. I used the remaining liquid fondant to pipe a design on top of the miniature cakes. We were required to use a different shade of color so I decided to tint my fondant purple. I picked up a red and a blue food color gel and put equal parts into my icing. I began to mix but instead of a beautiful purple, my fondant started to turn this horrific puke green color. I rechecked the bottles and realized that what I thought was red was actually orange. Great! After all of the hard work and time, I had to pipe my petit fours with puke green. I finished them off and then cut the Battenberg that I had previously wrapped in the leftover marzipan from the day before. I plated my work and presented to Chef.

“Wow, zat color eez ‘orible!”

“I agree Chef.”

Thankfully, the technique was clean enough that the minute problem with the coloring did not affect the final grade. It was a long and arduous day in the kitchen. And for what? I tasted the cakes and was disgusted! They look pretty but they are incredibly sweet. Too sweet. I was a little bit frustrated because I had planned to bring all of the day’s creations to a ward function that evening. I would have liked to make a great impression, but I was forced to bring these ever so attractive yet not so good tasting delectables.

After the afternoon photo shoot ritual, Yolanda, Hunter, and I spent a couple of hours preparing some Filipino food for a church activity. We made lumpia and lumpiung shanghai—absolutely delicious. We went to the Ngo family’s beautiful home and ate in the backyard around their pool. The food was incredible! There were about 20 adults and four children. Each family brought an incredible dish and I, the culinary student, had my disgusting (okay they really weren’t that bad) petit fours and Battenberg cake. It was so fun to be around people and to socialize—I was able to better acquaint myself with different people in the ward. Before it got too late, we changed into our bathing suits (swimming suits—for all of you Americans) and took to the hot tub. Yolanda, the boys, two young ladies from the ward, and I were the only ones to get in. When it was late enough for the kids to be in bed, we got out, packed up, and left. Fortunately, one of the ward members, Brother Young, was in love with the desserts I brought, so I placed the remainder of them on a “to go” plate for him to take home. Thank goodness. I’m sure there are so many details I am leaving out, but that will have to do, because I am incredibly tired! Oh, we worked out our abs before going to bed. Ha! It was a great day.

Petit Fours and Battenberg

Battenberg Cake

Petit Fours

Sliced Petit Four